Shattered
by Vixen of Light
Summary: The dawn has broken; the harsh light of day seeps in. post BD; Jacob/Bella. Flames keep me warm at night, ha. No character bashing, mind. Alphabet chapter titles, challenge by Erina-Chan!
1. A: Always

**1: ALWAYS**

"Why did you imprint on me?"

I hear it vibrate in my very bones, that silk-and-chime voice, lilting, adoring. I knew she'd ask, one day, and I had cringed and waited and here it was.

She was sitting opposite me, pulling a comb through her shining hair and looking up at me, a sweet smile on her lips. She was expecting the answer of a lover, a soft 'because you are my soul mate' or perhaps 'I was made for you'. She wanted me to answer as I'd have been able to in those first few months when the imprint was new and the pull of her gravity had actually given me some measure of relief and happiness, when she hadn't been a replacement but something entirely different, a dear child to protect. Not a lover. Not even close.

The pull of the imprint meant I could never, ever lie to my precious one. Stronger even then when Sam had used an Alpha command on me, for I had no method of defence against an imprint.

"You had your mother's eyes," I muttered, refusing to look up into those same eyes, staring back at me, boring into my skull and to the soul beyond. "I love her, and you have her eyes, and she is not available. I imprinted on you because the one I was really meant to be with was overwhelmed by someone who wasn't made for her and you were the next best option."

The silence was a twisting knife in my stomach, because her pain was mine, for the rest of our existence.

Eventually, I dared to look up. Her angel-face was still, those chocolate eyes closed as though she couldn't bear to use them. I looked away again.

"But we are together forever," she whispered at last. She had never known, had she? That I loved – love – her beautiful, clumsy, faithless mother more than my own life. I thought having a bond to another would make me forget her; that destiny would overrule my heart. I was wrong. It just meant I felt guilty and self-loathing as well as loneliness, grief and regret. What was the point of this? I wondered if that was why the imprint had failed – and there was no other word, was there? I still dreamed of her mother, after all – she couldn't breed and she didn't make me stronger. The opposite, in fact. These days, I felt weak and sick to be with her, even as I ran to her open arms, driven by something stronger than any of us.

"Yes," I gritted out. "Always."


	2. B: Birthday

**2: BIRTHDAY**

"Of course we're celebrating!" Alice batted a shiny balloon at me. I sighed.

"If anything, my birthday should be the day I was Turned, surely? The same as Renesmee's?" I'd secretly hoped for a joint party so everyone would pay her the attention and leave me alone. Some things hadn't changed simply by stopping my heart.

"Nonsense," said Alice breezily. "After all, it's been too long since we've had a party, and you can still remember what it's like to turn up another year..."

Ugh. Don't remind me. I shuddered, and since this was a vampire body, it was a delicate, dainty motion, not the loud movement it should have been. This still didn't feel like my body, even years later.

"I'd planned to read _Jane Eyre_ this evening..." I protested lamely. It was true; I hadn't had a moment to read a book alone in what seemed like forever. Haha, now I knew what forever really was. What I really meant was perhaps a handful of months? Strange how long that felt. It was the little things I really missed...sleep, for instance. Waking up with the pleasure of knowing you still have half an hour to lie in the warm. And food...the tasty smell of cooking, sticking a sneaky finger in the cake bowl. And...freedom. Just being alone sometimes, knowing no-one was asking a thing of you.

"You can read any time," Alice cut over me, which was not entirely true or fair. But this was Alice, and I loved her. Of all the people in the world, she was the one that never truly irritated me; the sister I'd never had. In some ways she reminded me of my mother: loving, quirky, child-like.

I squirmed inside at that, because it was about the first admission I'd given myself that even Edward could upset me. That I could leave and it would be Alice I missed the most. It was a loathsome, grief-stricken thought that lurked behind my eyes at night – although night and day made no difference to me now – and tormented me. But it still remained. When he was with me every single moment. When he still patronised me. When he tried to organise my life for me, stop me having a peaceful moment with a book, go hunting alone, spend time with Renesmee, just the two of us. My darling little girl. Even see Jake. He still didn't like it on some level. The way he didn't understand.

I forced a smile on my lips. "Alright, just this year...next year we stop for sure!"

"You say that every year," crowed Alice, triumphant, and danced off to fling streamers about the room. She made the movement look so natural. I was sure she had to have been graceful as a human. I never thought I would value my clumsiness, or miss it, but...

I always hated birthdays.


	3. C: Confusion

**3: CONFUSION**

There was only one person who perhaps could help, as much as I hated to ask. I hadn't seen him for a long time, because it was still awkward on some level. The wolf under my skin longed to burst out and fight, as I bet his did too. Well, what could ya do?

Leah was going to be mad when she got back in my head later.

I knocked on the door, and by some stroke of luck it was he who answered.

"I need help, Sam," I stated, no preamble.

"You'd better come in," he said, regarding me for a minute. I stepped over the threshold of the house, feeling like an intruder.

"Well?" he said, but there was a faint, affable smile hovering on his face. He was trying, at least.

"I don't love the person I imprinted on," I said bluntly. As I said it, I felt something inside of me crumble. I thought I could state it, just like that, no trouble, but had I even admitted it to myself yet? Deep down, really? Had I clung to some hope that Ness would work out?

He just stared.

"Yeah, man, don't look at me like that," I said wearily. I'd been through this pain a thousand times, I was a pro. He was just a talented amateur. He loved his person, after all. Probably. "I need help."

"Yes," he agreed, the inflection half joking. I made a half-hearted swipe at him. His face grew serious. "What do you mean, Jake? How can you...not?"

"She's my whole world," I snarled, looking up at him from the sickness. "I can't be away from her, she calls and I come, I can't deny her a damn thing. But I don't want to be with her. I don't...love...her." I shook my head. "What, is this how it's meant to be?"

"The other guys...no, they're happy. They never had anyone else." Sam said, softly, sitting beside me. "I'm happy...mostly."

I looked up sharply at that one.

"I shouldn't tell you...that's what cuts her up more than anything. I never tell Em. She'd never ask. What hurt Leah the most is that...part of me still loves her. Always will. I fell in love with her, knowing her, wanting her. Nothing can change that. I'm bound to Em, and I do love her. She's...easy to love. But there's still the confusion. I wake up sometimes and think I'm with Lee. I just have to remind myself I love Emily as well, more. I can't be with Lee. I have to be content with who I have: a beautiful loving woman who I care about, and yes, love, too, a lot."

"I think I'm with Bella," I whispered. Somehow Sam's admission made things worse, a thousand times worse. I wasn't a freak. This was _normal_. I couldn't tell him that seeing her eyes every day and realising a second later it wasn't her was beyond confusion. It was hell.

"I'm so sorry..." Sam whispered, placing a hand on my shoulder. So was I.


	4. D: Digression

**4: DIGRESSION**

"Sure, Ed," Emmett snorted, not unkindly. "You're not trying to distract me at all." He pointedly turned the TV volume up, the sounds of the baseball game throbbing through the house.

I wasn't going to get any sensible answers here. I wish I had Emmett's ability to concentrate on one thing to the rejection of all others. I couldn't hold a conversation any more without a digression. I couldn't say the things I wanted to say. I didn't understand her. I don't think I ever had.

As I walked outside, I remembered how Jacob had always understood her in a heartbeat; ironic enough. He understood her even now without a heartbeat. I was drawn to her because I couldn't understand her. He was drawn to her because he did. I think that was why he loved her.

Why did I love her? The warmth of her skin. The way she would blush when she tripped and apologise. The way she simply didn't know how beautiful she was, how fragile and innocent. Her soul, so sweet, because she knew the brevity of life after James, after the Volturi. How she would fall asleep in my arms, unafraid. How she loved to read and cherished a hope she admitted to no-one but me to be an English teacher one day.

None of these things applied any more. My Bella was dead. This was a stranger with her name.

She knew she was beautiful. How could she not? She had no qualms about life, because for her, it would never end. She didn't blush or trip. She had no innocence, because she knew what the world contained now. She didn't sleep and had no need to overcome fear of me, for she was as I was: unbreakable. She would never teach, because she couldn't work in a different place, she couldn't go out in daylight to study the qualification.

I digressed a thousand, thousand conversations to avoid facing these thoughts. There were no distractions any more. Our daughter was old enough to take care of herself. The Volturi were not interested in a quiet coven of trouble-free vampires. There was an eternity stretching ahead of us of peace and serenity and...nothingness. I'd taken away from her everything that made her, her. The only things that were left were the things I did not understand.

We talked, sometimes. She listened to me play music, but she wasn't really a musician herself at all. She had no passion for the song, as I did. I hadn't before thought this mattered, as long as she enjoyed what I did for her. Now I realised that it mattered that we didn't share things. That I couldn't get in her head and see what she wanted and needed and neither of us were sufficiently able to verbally communicate: I had never needed to and she was too private to be able to do so.

I digress even to myself. The plain truth was that I was without the girl I thought I loved. I think she had been an illusion all along.


	5. E: Excuses

**5: EXCUSES**

"I'm going out, Edward," I called. He was sitting at his piano, eyebrows furrowed in an expression that would never leave a single trace on his flawless face. I'd been sitting reading, at last, in the next room, door open so he could feel my presence, I suppose – or keep an eye on me.

His head whipped round. "Anywhere interesting?"

Had I had a heart still, it would have faltered. My voice was thankfully utterly steady as I said "I thought I'd go see Charlie, actually. He has the morning off." I had practised saying the line over and over in the mirror until I had it perfect. I couldn't lie to save my...I mean, for anything.

He stared at me for a little longer than was comfortable, then jerked his head. "Stay safe, Bella." He meant, _don't let anyone see you. Don't eat the humans._ I was one, not so long ago. He always seemed to forget that, but he kept his condescending attitude about me and my liability likelihood. Only now did I see it as such.

"Of course," I said, I came slowly forward to kiss him. His lips against mine were warm now, and there was a part of me that missed the coldness, believe it or not. The kiss was perfunctory, as if both our minds were elsewhere. Well, I know mine was. I was profoundly glad for once he could not read my mind.

He turned back to his piano. I didn't recognise the tune he was playing. It had a bold major key, and harsh, staccato notes. That wasn't my Edward's music at all. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but somehow the words stuck in my throat. I turned back to him for a moment, desperate, puzzled, but he kept his back firmly to me. I half-reached out a hand, let it fall. I didn't deserve the honour of asking him what was wrong. I was the one making excuses to run off. Maybe he knew, on some level.

"Edward..." I whispered, and his back stiffened.

"Off you go, Bella. Enjoy yourself. Say hi to Charlie from me." He said calmly, tonelessly.

I slunk out, and fished my phone out of my pocket, clicked into my messages and stared at the most recent.

_See you at 1! It's been too long. J xxx_

There was no reason to make an excuse about seeing my...I tightened my fists...future son in law. None. Unless I had a reason to feel guilty about doing so; a reason like upsetting my husband and daughter. That kind of reason.

_Nothing wrong with spending time with a friend,_ I thought, fiercely and falsely. _Edward just wouldn't understand that I want some time on our own. I bet Jake's told Renesmee._ Lie, lie, lie. He hadn't. I just knew that for a fact. This was a meeting for excuses because we had a reason we needed to excuse ourselves from.

This was our secret, something that shouldn't happen but had to. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. He was my...my match...in the world where monsters weren't. But now I was a monster. I was part of his world again; we were equal.

And we needed to be together.


	6. F: Fortune

**6: Fortune**

I didn't even hear her come up behind me. Before, I would have heard her walking, probably stumbling in the sand, and I'd have spun round, laughing to greet her. But now she was silent and light. No stumbling.

"Hi," she said, softly, and her voice was her own. Her nose wrinkled. "Man, you stink!" she added, and I laughed, a bark.

"Yeah, your new perfume ain't so hot either, Bells," I winked, and she kicked some sand at me, grinning, a child again. I wondered how long since she'd smiled. She had looked so serious before.

She was beautiful now, unnaturally so, instead of the translucent human girl she'd been before. I concentrated on her uneven lips, the shade of her hair (fuller now). The things that made her, her. I blocked out the smell. This was Bella. She might look a little different (hah!) but her soul was there, the soul that understood mine; she was still my best friend (the mother of my partner...).

She plopped down on the sand beside me, comfortable as if we'd done that every day of our lives and would until the world ended. I slung an arm around her. It was...right to do so. It still felt utterly natural. This was how it had been meant to be, after all. Fortune and unexpected vampires couldn't ever erase the fact that she and I fitted together so rightly.

I'd planned a light conversation of chat and I'd go away feeling happier that she was in love and I'd have to deal with it, as usual. She didn't seem so, though. She seemed...well, lost. For a moment it was almost like having the human Bella against me, the Bella when Edward had left her, so long ago...lonely, frightened. Only she _had_ him.

_That's because she and I were the ones who were meant to be_, came the insidious thought. _Fortune can distract but it can't derail it. She's lonely because it's us that understand each other, deep down, no-one else._

I immediately felt sick. This was the mother of the girl I was destined for (_now)_...what was I doing? Sure, fortune had given her something, but it had given me someone too. Ness. Nessie, sitting at home, thinking I was out Wolf, devoted possessive Ness (_with her mother's eyes_) whose heart I was breaking. Over her mother, who she loved. What kind of monster would do that?

"This is nice," sighed Bella from my shoulder where she rested, and I knew what kind of monster would do such a thing. A monster like me.


	7. G:Gallant

**7: Gallant**

"You're such a gentleman," Esme beamed as I held a door for her, as she did every time I did so. "So gallant!" She bustled through – surely only Esme could make a bustle look as graceful as she did – with her armful of flowers to help Alice decorate the living room. I know she was puzzled to see me, though. I spent more and more time at my previous home than my current. My given reason was simple: Bella wasn't in. My true reason...?

I wanted people to talk to...people I knew. Perhaps not so gallant.

Alice glanced up, and her face was unhappy. Naturally – she would be seeing a thousand disturbing futures, and that was only an assumption. I had tuned her mind out because I wasn't ready to face that. I knew she would tell no-one until I was ready, but Bella was her friend. I hated to hurt her with my thoughts almost as much as I hated hurting Bella – for the sake of what had once been – but...I feared Bella would not be that hurt at all. Why couldn't I tell what she wanted? I grit my teeth, feeling the venom flow. Cursed.

"Edward?" she said softly, dancing towards me, but I turned quickly away, looking for Carlisle.

I found him in his study, examining cells through a microscope. He looked up and pushed the apparatus away when he saw me. Carlisle, my father whose compassion I hardly deserved, the only one to whom I could turn.

"Edward?" he said, echoing Alice, and motioning to a chair. I sat, through politeness rather than any desire to do so.

"Have you and Esme..." I began softly, and he sighed – a cipher to show me he understood rather than a bodily requirement.

"You and Bella are drifting apart, aren't you?" he said, gently. "Can I help, son? Is there anything anyone can do?"

I dropped my head a little. Of course he would have noticed. "At first," I began, carefully, "It was so right. We couldn't part from each other. Then..." _Then I realised what an eternity with a person meant. That being in love meant you had to know someone inside and out, to want to be with them forever, for who they were, right then._ I faltered and stopped.

"I think I destroyed the girl I loved after all," I finished, blankly.

At length, Carlisle said, "I was lucky. I knew Esme only after transformation, as did Rose. Alice...well, Alice is a little different. Yet we none of us had any _human_ comparison. Edward, humans are special. They have something we never will, because they have limited lives, limited understanding. They have imagination and courage. What can a vampire fear, generally? I wish there had been another way for you and Bella; that you could have got to know her as a vampire."

"I have been..." I curved my lips in a smile, thinking of Esme's comment, "Less than gallant to the vampire females I have known."

"Perhaps," Carlisle said, very quietly, "I was wrong to change you. There is something about you that is very human, and responds to humanity."

"You have never been wrong. You saved me," I said resolutely. Nothing could be said against Carlisle.

"Maybe," he said wearily. "But it hasn't made you happy, has it? Any more than changing Bella has in the long term?"

And the inevitable answer was _no._


	8. H: Hair

**8: Hair**

_So, Bells, how about an open relationship? You, me, and your daughter, since neither of us can be away from her...?_ No, that was too low. Even for me. I smirked at the thought, nonetheless.

"What's up?" Bella tilted her head curiously. She'd retained all her own little mannerisms, even if she didn't need them any more. I guess she'd retaught herself for being around the humans...and me.

"Just a thought," I shook my now-shaggy hair, and it was her turn to smile.

"Long again," she noted, reaching out to finger the ends. I leaned over and shook it all into her face, and she smacked me with a little shriek.

"Jake, you pain," she complained, laughing and blowing hair out of her mouth. I grinned at her and straightened it up again with my fingers.

"Yeah, I got used to it long; I missed having all that fur," I said casually. She pushed a stray strand out of my face. Her touch was cool electricity though me. If she noticed my eyes darken or anything, she didn't say. She always did miss the signs, though.

"I like it long," she mused instead. "It suits you."

_I know_, I nearly said. Ness complained about it, but not enough to make me change it. Funny how I still wanted to please Bella the most. It didn't make...sense. Although, on the other hand, it made _perfect_ sense. If she and I had been together, there would have been no Renesmee and no problem. No-one for me to imprint on if it wouldn't naturally revert back to Bella herself, my – yes, my first choice, damnit. I hated the thought, because I knew her mother adored her...but she would have adored our children. I shuddered at the thought.

"So, how are you and Renesmee?" she asked, as if she could hear my thoughts.

I thought about that. How was I meant to answer? _I'm not happy any more, sorry...so neither's she. Yeah, your daughter. Oops. _We had been happy, for a long time, really. When she'd been a kid, when she'd been growing up and I was her uncle, we'd had the best times. We'd hunted, played, had stupid little adventures (although tamer than if it had been Bella – she was her father's daughter, like that), she'd slept in my fur and I'd been happy. She had been a distraction...no, more than that. The centre of my world that she was meant to be. Like having Bella's child as my own, I guess, as if we'd bore her together. Before it got...complicated. Like always.

"Fine," I said evasively. "How about you and the vamp?"

She paused, then glanced sideways at me. "Fine," she shot back, then looked quickly away. I blinked. _My_ kind of 'fine'?

"Bells?" I said quietly, and she looked up at me with desperation in her eyes for just a moment, before she covered it.

"Keep your hair long," she said, abruptly. "It makes me happy."

"I know," I said, aloud this time, and she smiled at last, that smile that melted my heart.


	9. I: Indoors

**9: Indoors**

"So where's Edward, anyway?" Jake asks. We're standing now, walking along the shore and he's skimming pebbles over the murky water. Each one bounces at least five times. It's a skill I've never had the knack of. I shrug.

"Indoors somewhere," I say, and realise how disinterested that sounded. "He's probably playing some music. He loves to write new pieces." I smile at the _splash, splash _of the pebbles. I've forgotten how much I love the beach, the fresh air. When I read, as I always have, I prefer to be outside, sitting under a tree or watching the clouds. Another thing Jake and I have in common. The indoors is too stifling.

Jake raises an eyebrow. "Any time limit on you, then? Do I have to get you back in one piece at some point?"

"Nope," I say, decisively, as if this is the Old Days, as if seeing Jake is a dangerous pastime and Edward will shout if I'm so much as scratched. It wasn't possible any more so he had no reason to complain, did he? "I'm all yours!" Inside I groan at that sentence. Jake flushes oddly and looks back to the sea.

He is my daughter's partner. What is crossing my mind, slowly but inexorably, is too wrong for me to consider. Too wrong for me to want. I begin to feel the faint disgust at myself welling up in me, of old, of my human days, at odds with this new life. _I want him to like me still. I was jealous because my daughter loved him as much as she loved me, but I was jealous because he loved her. And he wasn't hers. He was mine._

"Edward won't mind," I add. "It's all fine, after all!" _Fine. There's that word again._

Jake lets it go at that and pulls on my arm, turning me to the sea. "Hey, Bells, look!" There's a splashing far out at sea. I can see it perfectly now, just like him.

"Is that...?"

"Dolphins!" He beams. "I've never seen them here before...wow..."

They're amazing. They leap up through the foam and all they can feel, I'm sure, is joy, freedom, companionship.

"So cool!" Jake wades a little way into the water and, after a moment (I'm more than ready for Alice shouting at me for ruining shoes) I follow, feeling the surf spray up my legs. I wonder if I could swim away and just not stop, but no – Jake would fetch me back, just like he had before. He would rescue me from deep water, from drowning, from oblivion. He always saved me. So many moments we shared, so much connection. _So much love._

"Hey, I bet you could ride your bike safely now," Jake grins, his eyes following the dolphins as they dance onwards. "We can do all those things again now, right? You're hardly breakable! Maybe being a vamp wasn't so bad in some ways..." He winks.

My lips part in a thoughtful half-smile. He has a point. I can only imagine how amazing the air would feel rushing over my new skin, and Edward would never be interested in riding.

"Yeah, I'd like that," I say, and his smile widens even further.

"I've not changed a thing on your bike," he promises.

I realise I'm looking forward to the future more than I have for a little while now. The glory and freedom of the outside with...no, I can't think that. _With Jake, who answers my needs, who matches my heart, whether I'm a vampire or a human. Who, now, doesn't see me any differently inside. Who always knew what was there. _

Oh no. I can't go through this again. Not now, not like this. Not to Edward, not to Renesmee. _But I want to._

A/N: Are there dolphins at La Push? I just don't know. So, like Schroedinger's Cat, we will never know lest we open the box and go there. And that won't happen. So let's just say that there are. :D

A/N part 2: If anyone by any remote chance HAS been to La Push...I still won't rewrite the chapter. Pretend they're...eh, seals or something. Yes. That's clearly likely! *ahem*


	10. J: Juice

**10: Juice**

_What are you doing?_ Her voice screeches in my head. I'm very fond of Leah, now, but I can't pretend I wasn't expecting this reaction and I had no one to blame but myself, since I was the one who insisted we go Wolf once a month at least, to check in with each other.

_I can't help it,_ I snarl defensively.

_I don't want to see her in my dreams every damn night again,_ she sighs, and to be fair, she has a point. I wince, since I understand what it's like to have serenity ripped away from you. Life was OK for us for a while there. Now I'm the one dragging it all back into the open again. Well, kind of. I still maintain it's not my fault. Like I'd choose to be feeling this way again unless I had a very good reason (_her_).

_I know 'her', _she says with exaggerated patience. _And don't get me wrong, she's...alright..._

_Too kind,_ I say, heavy on the sarcasm, since Leah is so good at skirting right over it.

She does anyway. _You've imprinted. _And now her thoughts begin to tremble. I desperately try to submerge what Sam told me, all those months ago, about Leah. _That's it. You're with the one._

_I think,_ I say, very carefully, _that we should have this conversation as humans..._

Once we've both phased back and dressed, she's sitting on my coach and glaring. "Drink?" I say, already walking towards the kitchen.

"Anything," she sighs.

A familiar smell wafts out of the fridge. I stare at the carton. I don't even like cranberry juice but it was _her_ favourite drink. I still buy it even though she'll never need it, no matter how much it looks like blood. I guess I could try and fool her...I snigger, thinking of the face she'd pull. No one drinks it now, after all. I shut the door and make coffee instead.

I dump the mugs unceremoniously on the table and sit back down. Leah sips at her drink and stares at me over the rim of the mug.

"You can't be in love with someone you haven't imprinted on," she said, her eyes flickering just a touch. "That's how it works. You can love before but not after." Her jaw is set, because she can't – won't – accept any other conclusion.

"I reckon," I say, wondering how to extricate myself from any of this. "That...for me, it's different. Because...I don't know, maybe I had a choice, because it's all linked back to Bells, see? If she'd chosen me, without the vam- Edward, I'd have imprinted on her in the end. Ness is...the second choice. But..." I sigh, and drop my head into my hands. "I won't work. It's like a war inside me. I can't fall out of love with Bella but I can't _not_ be near Ness. I do love her. I'm just not _in_ love with her. Bella's still here. Being a vampire doesn't change anything. That's not why I loved her. She's still her, the Bella I knew. Ness doesn't fulfil the purpose of imprinting because she's not...fate's real choice? Edward got in the way of it...and... "

"Oh god..." Leah just stares. "But...she's an adult. She's Bella's daughter! What, you think Bella's going to be OK with it? You think Renesmee's just going to roll over and let you run off with her mother? Ick, Jake..."

"Yeah, I know," I growl. But I could sense Bella's dissatisfaction with her life. But also, I knew her love for her daughter was infinite. Probably more than she'd ever loved Edward – or me. And Leah had a point. I lay down at night with a girl and dreamed of her mother? _Ick_ was about right.

"I have to do something," I said aloud. Leah goggled at me. There was no other word.

"Like what?" she managed at last.

I sighed. "I wish I knew..."


	11. K: Kiss

**11: Kiss**

Perhaps it wasn't too late. Perhaps I could still find my Bella beneath the new skin. Finding Bella meant finding Jacob at the moment, but that was not much of a problem. Today I happened to know they were fixing up the bikes at the garage. It wasn't far, as the vampire runs.

I had grown to see the good heart beneath the werewolf's wilder nature, but we would never be close, as such. We were just too different. I can't deny I felt a strange twinge at the thought of Bella being so close to Jacob, even as I ever had – it only served to highlight how very different, at the core, we were. I trusted him, though. I had to – he and my own daughter were bonded irrevocably, as, I could admit, he was to Bella also. Nonetheless, Jacob and I would never truly choose each other's company.

The smell of grease and oil was unpleasant to me as I approached, but I resigned myself to it. There were other people – wolves – around the garage and their thoughts were invasive.

_Wonder if I really need to change this part too?_

_Maybe red would be better...maybe Quil can lend me some paint..._

_Wonder what's for tea? Something big after all this work, I hope..._

Such trivial, innocent, _wonderful_ thoughts. I envied them. My own mind swerved from indifference to turmoil and back again. But here, if anywhere, Bella would be most herself, and I needed to reconnect with her, with the woman I loved.

_She's so beautiful...still._

I stiffened at that thought. The tone was only too familiar. It was if I had jumped back a handful of years and the Bella I would find would be a human and the wolf with her would still be in love with her. That was the kind of image he would have unwittingly projected into my mind back then...Not now. Maybe it was just...?

Her laughter was the ringing of a thousand crystal bells, just like mine, but the harsh emphasis, the way the laughter began so hesitantly and grew, was all her own. For a moment, I felt a little lighter. Maybe this would be alright after all.

"These are practically truck tyres!" she was saying, mirth in her voice. "What, we're going up mountains now?"

"Thought you'd like a change of scenery," he said blithely. "Alaska, maybe." I felt the image jump into my mind sharply – he and Bella, on their bikes, on the top of a snow covered mountain, staring into a white eternity. He knew she would love the adventure; she would relish every moment. Deep down, I realised, she really did have a craving for adrenalin. It was the first real revelation I had felt about her for a very long time, and it was a strange shock. She had a...wildness about her, the thing that cleaved to Jacob. I flinched.

Finally, I could see the two of them, laughing together, looking utterly natural and relaxed with each other. He had a hand resting on the bike's saddle, leaning over her, and she was kneeling, examining the tyres and resting against his legs. There was no trace of Renesmee in either of their minds. A burning ball of confusion and horror rose in my throat, and I held back from announcing myself, leant into the shadows.

And suddenly, I knew what he was going to do. And I wasn't going to stop him.

"I won't force you this time," he whispered, and I looked at the snapshot glimpse of her gazing up into his face, her expression alive with remembrance, desire, distress, a thousand emotions.

The world stood still.

He kissed her.

I only remember, as I simply turned and walked out, that the envy had faded. The girl kissing Jacob was not the girl I believed I knew at all. I was utterly empty inside.


	12. L: Left

**12: Left**

He had left me again.

When I was a little girl he couldn't be apart from me. I loved that, my Jacob, my Wolf. He didn't look at Mummy at all, really, apart from to share a grin over something brief or talk about food or...me.

Now he looks at her all the time. He's happy to leave me. Why?

I show him my day, and I can tell he isn't interested. He just...has to listen. He has no choice. He used to love to see the images I'd place into his mind about what I'd been doing, seeing, thinking. Now he comes up as if a devil drives him to me.

He's grumpier than I imagined. Harsher, rasher, more emotional. I felt his presence from the womb. _Mummy loves this man, and I love Mummy. Therefore, I should love him too. _First,I was aware of the warmth of Mummy's belly, her soft voice crooning to me. A pair of cold hands nearly pressing at me – Daddy. And then I heard the other voice.

A rougher voice, with an easy laugh and desperate concern for my Mummy. I used to look forward to hearing that voice again. I was happy when he came, and so was Mummy. I reflected her happiness. Mummy had Daddy, I thought, and maybe I can make this man – Jacob – happy by being his friend instead, since he won't be able to see Mummy as much. He seems to care about her so much. And then, as time passed, I wanted him to like _only_ me. And he did.

I grew up so quickly, and I realised I enjoyed being Jacob's friend more and more. It was difficult, growing. I had no comparison, no-one to teach me what it was like, being a child. Little things that humans, in groups, aging slowly, seem to understand naturally. I still call Mummy 'Mummy'. Jacob used to laugh at me, and I'd laugh with him. I suppose that was the right thing to do. Now he winces when I say it. Does he think I'm too immature? When I'm around humans, and their children who are technically my age and those who _look_ my age, I think I must be. I understand about the hunt and the dark of the night and the eternity of life, but not about fairy stories or best friends or parents who can get hurt or collecting cards or celebrity crushes. Things that make humans different to me.

I grew up. Jacob seemed less and less happy with that. We didn't play any more, as if I was a normal child, the way he played with Quil's Claire sometimes. I had never entirely understood the point of play anyway. But Jacob was mine, and I was, physically and mostly mentally, of age, and I _wanted_ him. At first I didn't understand, but Aunt Rose explained it to me. I went to him...And then he told me why he allowed himself to be with me, to let our bond...work. And I finally understood.

He _wanted_ Mummy.

But Mummy has Daddy and he...he has me.

He _can't_ leave me.

But he has.


	13. M: Moon

**13: Moon**

I was kissing her...no, better, worse, she was kissing _me. _I buried my fingers in her soft hair and pressed to her cold skin and didn't even care about the smell, the soft musical voice whimpering against my mouth. _Bella. Still my Bella._

I lost track of how long we were there, just sitting in each others' arms, breathing – well, me breathing, anyway. The moon outside was full. Good job I wasn't a real werewolf.

At last, she said, quietly, sadly, "Now what, Jake? Now what?"

She was thinking of Ness. It was written all over her face. Not Edward, just her daughter, who was bound to me.

"I changed her nappies, Bells," I said, low and fierce, sick with whatever stupid urge this imprinting crap was. "I'm meant to go from playing peeka-boo to, to...to this? I'm not a creep, Bells. I can't do that. I love her, sure, like a little sister, the sister that means the whole world to me. I want to protect her. But I'm not in love with her. I can't be. That's sick. I don't know what Quil thinks but...I can't do that to her, after I held her as a baby and..." I paused in the midst of the words tumbling out. "I'm already in love with someone, anyway. I never stopped. Anyway," I ploughed on, not giving either of us a moment to doubt it, "What about...about _him?_"

Her head dropped. "When I was first changed," she said, her voice distant, her eyes unfocussed and staring into the past, "He was _everything_. I mean, nothing compared to what he was for me as a human. He was my oxygen. I wanted him constantly."

"Not helping," I muttered, sick to the stomach to think of it. I stared into the moonlight, glittering. I thought, out of nowhere, that I could walk outside with her now and no one would know what either of us were. They'd just think we were a couple, attractive but normal. I ground my teeth.

"Let me _finish_," she said, glaring. I held up my hands, pacifistic, palms open. "_At first_, Jake. Being like this...changed me, though. Changed him...us. I had forever...with him. At first I can't tell you how perfect that was. Everything I ever wanted. But..." a strange, hoarse sob came from her throat and I realised, yeah, she couldn't cry, could she? "We didn't _know_ each other. We just...ran out of things to say to each other, I guess. We had nothing to share once the...the..._attraction_ faded. And now I have eternity. Not just a few human years to marvel over him and then I'll die. I have the rest of forever to fill." She raised her eyes to mine. "I can't do it. I can't feel the way I did about him any more."

I pulled her to me, willing the night to just not end and shield us forever. I wanted to say I was sorry, because it hurt her, because Edward was...an OK guy in the end...but...I wasn't sorry.

If there was a man in the moon, he was smiling on me.


	14. N: No

**14: No**

Alice was waiting for me at the door when I got home, a shadow outlined in the harsh electric light. Her face was sorrowing.

"Will you...win her back?" she said, without preamble, the phrasing odd on her lips.

The world, seemingly, held its breath.

"No," I said, quietly, perhaps admitting it to myself for the first time. That I didn't want to...didn't want her, any more.

Alice nodded, and simply turned, drifted back into the house. I was expecting a barrage of questions; what about her; what about all our sacrifices; what about Nessie? I hadn't thought of answers to any of those questions, so she wouldn't be able to see a thing...only that Bella had chosen Jacob. Perhaps, of course, Bella had already chosen her path and Alice knew full well what she would do – that the only indecision had been my reaction. I had made my choice – chosen 'no'.

I sat down under a tree, not ready to go inside, and stared up at the stars. I imagined her face, but the image that came to mind was still, automatically, the warm, human face I had loved. I thought of her in Jacob's arms, but the flood of rage and pain was missing. I cared for her, still, of course, and all I really felt was empty relief that she was happy, and that it wasn't me that had to make her so. I grimaced at the selfish irony of that thought, but it was there, burning away inside of me. _I don't love you any more, Bella._ Maybe I never truly had. I didn't _know_ the girl – the woman – the night creature – whoever she really was. I was, however, responsible for her, for her eternity. I had the weight, the burden, of her happiness on my shoulders and it was no-one's else to bear. She was safe with a wolf, now, with the creature who had been the thorn in my side, my rival, for a short time, my brother and finally, now...well, my escape route, I suppose.

Here I was again, alone. I never had before thought I would relish it, drink it in like the sweetest fragrance, the cleanest, brightest vision. Something else had been returned to me, and I felt it stretch under my fingers, nascent and hungry: my creativity, my inspiration. When my Bella-Muse had died inside of me, all I could create was black and bitter. Only now did I feel the urge to write music again; symphonies and movement after movement to the world itself, and to freedom. So much I had lost, and only now, with my release, could I feel it. We hadn't been good for each other. Only now could I see that, with the options of us either settling back into that empty familiar routine we'd forged when the love had faded, or of us pursuing our own separate happinesses.

I stood up, and for the first time since I'd looked at the now-flawless face of my mate – not my lover, as a human, my animal _mate_ - years ago, and realised a part of me had forever died inside when she had, did I have some measure of passion again.

I stretched my taut muscles, a slow smile spreading on my face. I longed to run...and now, I could, run wherever I craved, answer to no-one.

I lifted a foot, closed my eyes, and inhaled, slow, sure.

I ran.


	15. O: Oasis

**15: Oasis**

_No need to fear, nothing can hurt you again,_ I chanted in my head. In Jake's arms, I felt safe, warm, _alive_, just as I always had. He brought me back to life, again and again. How had I not seen that before? I'd been so blinded by my infatuation and believed it was real love...I'd nearly thrown that away. I didn't deserve him, as I'd always said...but still, still, he allowed me to be with him, came back for me.

I remember him saying once, how Edward was a drug to me. So he had been...and I had sworn to be without him would kill me. But I had no blood in my veins to be infected by a drug any more, and I was already dead. Now, for the first time, the veils were lifted from my feeble eyes. The sun I found blinded me.

We walked back to his house. I didn't want to go home and face Edward. Even as he held me, even as I felt the world open up to me...there was pain. I could see it etched in his face as surely as it must be in my marble one.

"Ness..." he mumbled involuntarily, and could I have shivered, I would have done.

I still remembered her birth. I remembered the terror of the Volturi and how they so nearly ripped her away from me. I remembered how happy I was she would have Jake to protect her as surely as he had me. Now I was stealing that away from her. I couldn't ask her to stay with us if Jake was mine, could I?

I remembered further back – when my parents told me they were splitting up; how I'd wept and wondered what it was I, they, anyone, had done wrong. How I'd sworn whoever I loved, I would never leave. Only now did I understand what it felt like to realise you didn't love someone any more – that sometimes, it just can't work out. I imagined my mother telling Charlie she needed to get away from Forks, go anywhere where there was life and colour. I imagined his fury at her frivolity, masking the pain. In my head, their faces morphed into mine and Edward's, and the little girl clinging to her mother's hand as they walked away was Renesmee's. History spiralling inwards, repeating the mistakes of the past, desperately, trying to fix them, too, too late.

Only this time, I'd been stupider than my mother. I'd chosen to betray my daughter as well as my husband.

Jacob's face was creased with suffering. "Does it hurt?" I asked tentatively, just wanting something to break the images in my head.

"It...burns," he grunted, pressing a hand to his chest. He forced a smile for me. "Like the first time I phased, almost." I imagined the muscles and bone ripping apart and reforming. I clung tighter to his hand.

"I'm so...sorry," I choked, and he tugged me into his arms.

"It's OK," he soothed, even in the midst of his own pain. "It's OK. I know what's happening. I can get through it...with you. I love you more than I'm tied to some stupid fate. And like I said...I'll always protect her, even when...when she finds out." An icy hand clenched my heart at that, but I nodded, my face smothered against his muscled chest. "I just won't be in love with her."

"She'll...never forgive me," I whispered. My little girl, my nudger, my baby, who I loved more than anything on this earth...except perhaps Jacob. Why did it have to be like this? What was _wrong_ with me?

"Bella..." he pushed me back and stared into my eyes. "We'll get through this...somehow. I promise you."

I squeezed him fiercely to me, strong as him now. I couldn't let him go. Even in the midst of the pain, the fear, the guilt, everything, he was my oasis in the barren world. He always had been.

----------------------------

Sorry for the double load, I spotted a typo...¬_¬;;

And thank you Anenihan for letting me know about the dolphins! Yay!


	16. P: Paparazzi

**16: Paparazzi**

I took her home. There was no-one in; not exactly unexpected. Ness was most likely with the Cullens, and Edward...well, who knew? We were both relieved, anyway. I swallowed the burn in my chest that was the godforsaken pull of this damn imprint bond thing on me and forced myself to leave. Every step was like hiking through quicksand. I felt the wolf stretch under my skin long before I'd made a conscious, human decision to phase. Yeah, this was what it was like, running out of control. I'd felt it before...desperation. This was so sick.

The moment I'd phased, I wish I hadn't.

_What? What are you DOING?_

_You can't break that kind of bond! It'll kill you!_

_It's impossible._ Leah's voice was almost smug.

_You TOLD them?_

_I couldn't NOT. You know how it is. It's not exactly the kind of thing I can push to the back of my mind, Jake..._

I snarled. _What are you, the paparazzi? It's none of your business._

_Yes it is,_ Seth pleaded. _We care, for one thing, OK? We can't let you get ripped apart._ I winced at his melodrama.

_I can handle it, _I growled. _I'm an Alpha. This is the only good thing about it. I'm strong enough to follow my own mind, and I'm not being...beaten, have my life dictated to me, by some stupid 'fate' rubbish._

They backed off a bit at that. Leah's faint distress registered in my head, and I realised she was wondering why Sam, the other Alpha, wasn't trying the same...I sighed in the deepest parts of my mind I could just about keep detached from the pack-mind. Her pain was perfectly understandable.

_Phase back,_ I ordered them, and reluctantly, they did so. Only Leah stayed.

_He's not the...the..._I shrugged, mentally. _The true Alpha. You know I hate to say that, but that's how it is. D'you think any of the others could break their bond? _

_I wouldn't know,_ she sniped. _I can't compare. I don't know what it feels like._

_They couldn't,_ I stated, firmly, making it a fact, trying to find some way to spare her. _For me, it hurts, every breath. But I'm not going to replace Bella with her baby daughter. You know how messed up that is. Hell, it's bad enough to end up tied to a baby for the rest of their life anyway, no matter what they might, what you might, want to choose... I'm not giving in to that. Who makes this happen, some superpower who likes toying with people? Just random biological rubbish? Forget it. We're all worth more than that._

The strength of my anger startled even the normally imperturbable Leah. _I think you're right,_ she said, quietly, at last. _We are all worth more than that._

_I wish you could be happy, _I said, at last. It was something that had always been there, in the air, in my mind, but I don't think I'd ever said it before.

She flinched. _Yeah, well...you too, Jake. You too._ And then she was gone, and I sat on my haunches, alone in the woods, burning and certain. I fell in love, and now she loved me back, and that was how it was meant to be. No matter how much I loved Ness – and I did, I truly did, the daughter of the woman I loved – I couldn't let her grow up and use her as a substitute. I'd take the consequences. I'd have the woman I loved to keep me strong.


	17. Q: Quest

**17: Quest **

They were all avoiding me a little. These days, they tended to, because I knew I unnerved them. They thought of me as the child I nearly was, but I was an adult in form. I stared sometimes at my body and wondered how it was mine, when my mind was so unready for this. When I was a baby, charming, unknowing, it had been so easy. Now I scared them, just a little.

She had already to know what I was planning to do; but it was she I needed the communication with. My mother's best friend, Aunt Alice, she who could see precisely what my plan was, that for which I quested. She had probably already seen all this coming, all this pain. It burned in my chest and I knew it did in Jacob's, too. His pain was mine, whether we liked it or not. His feelings were mine.

I'm only eight years old, technically, or in-technically, whichever. Unique, betrayed and lost, with only one person I thought I could turn to now. Alice had quested for him before and now it was my turn to.

She was watching me from the other side of the room, her expression completely blank. She had had years to perfect that, though.

I walked straight up to her and pressed my hand to her cheek. Her face was just as unreadable as I showed her Jacob, my bonded, forever-love, telling me it wasn't me he loved; that I was second choice; that it was my mother he always had and always would want. That after I had levelled in my head that I, this child-woman _thing_ would be his, that he didn't want me thus. I knew, at the back of his mind, he loved me merely for the thought that I was his child with my mother, not my father's at all.

Just the faintest hint of nausea crossed her face at that.

"I have to find him," I said, softly, sick, suffering..."He's the only one who knows...who might be able to help..."

I saw her eyes become distant, sifting through futures, checking for danger. Eventually, she shrugged. "I can't stop you, Nessie. But...it won't help, you know. He isn't...bonded, the way you are. He has no parents who love him...and you know Bella loves you, more than life."

I nodded, and the horrible truth was that she did. I couldn't hate her. I loved her too much, just like Jake. Uncle Jake, the man I loved...had made myself though, thought I loved, loved because my mother did, because it was in my bones from before I was even born...her love for him had made the imprint exist every bit as much as his love for her. The way I felt was almost inherited.

"I have to find something that is truly mine," I said, clearly, dropping my hand to my side. "The only way I can do that is to find someone who has had to do the same."

I could almost see her thinking, "But you're too young." She was right. I was too young for too many things, and too old for the things I wanted. It was some kind of miracle I wasn't half-mad, and I knew that was down solely to my parents and Jacob. The people I loved, who loved me...who I was going to leave. Who were leaving _me_.

"I'll sort something out," Aunt Alice murmured, and was gone, fluid as I could never be.

I had to find Nahuel.


	18. R: Reputation

**18: Reputation**

Part of me was so relieved when I was alone in the house. Its emptiness was reassuring: when I had been here of late with Edward, it had been oppressive, edgy...sad. As if something had died, or was waiting to die. Alone, it was peaceful. A niggling little part inside me just wanted to get it over, though...wanted Edward and Renesmee to be waiting for me, shouting, just so I could sort it out, somehow, if it was even sortable...

I glanced down at my wrist, where the wolf charm still hung. I had removed Edward's charm some time ago, tucked it in a drawer, claimed it didn't suit the bracelet and that I'd get it set in something more appropriate. Edward had given me that patronising little smile he used so often with me. I'd never had it set. The little russet wolf twisted and dance when I shook my wrist. It was not expensive or glamorous; it was just a token of love, made by his own hands, thinking of me. Nothing you could buy anywhere. _My Jake_. I remembered the promise bracelet that probably still sat on my daughter's wrist, and how I had, perhaps subliminally, worn to make some sort of odd point to her, him, myself, the world at large...

I sighed, and it took effort, the motion of air through my stone lungs, but I needed to. I missed those little signals humans made naturally. I thought this had all been the answer, but I was in more turmoil than I had ever been as a human. I'd wanted to leave my love, my desire, for Jacob behind, be submersed in my Edward, the mate of my soul...but as I'd known, when I was human, it was Jake who was my soul mate. Then, in my innocence, I'd thought what I'd felt for Edward, his beauty, was enough to swamp a soul mate's love.

I'd been so, so wrong.

I had an eternity to live through this, now. An eternity with Jacob, who would remain phasing because of me...an eternity with the shame and pain of being the fool who didn't understand her own soul, her own love. The reputation of being the betrayer.

It wasn't even my reputation that would suffer the worst, I realised, achingly. Jake, Renesmee...Edward. I had to find him. I had to explain...

I had to go. I knew Renesmee was safe for the moment at least at the Cullens. They would look after her. I suspected Edward would not be there – most recently he sought out no-one's company but his own when he was low. I thought for a moment, and in a flash, I knew where he would be – a place bitter, beautiful...a place where we had loved and he had left me and now, I would leave him. The irony was sickening.

I had to find the vampire I had once loved, in those woods, and do to him as he had done to me, and just pray one day he would have a Jacob to pick him up, just as I had.


	19. S: Surprise

**19: Surprise**

I turned a corner, racing for the sheer joy of it, and entered the familiar old grove I so usually ignored these days. She was flawless as she stood there. I remembered, painfully and sharply, when I had left her here, curled on the wet leaves, for her own good, so long ago...warm, human, fragile, weeping. Leaving her had been the hardest thing I had ever done, in a hundred years of existence...even dying had been easier. Now she was steel and ice and utterly dissociated from the girl I had loved. She did not weep. In that moment, seeing her here with the ghost of the past, I knew I was doing the right thing for us both. I grieved, but I knew we could not carry on thus.

I inclined my head, surprised at how formal I had naturally become with her. "Bella?"

She shook her head, smile soft, remembering also. "I don't want to hurt you like this..." she said, and I knew under the surface she was thinking, _like you hurt me once. _I still deserved a thousand hells for hurting her so...although, to myself alone, I had to admit it had hurt me that she had been so faithless as to accept my false rejection so quickly. Maybe deep down, she had feared, known, that all that held us together was the rush of a first, burning desire...not real love. It hurt me no longer to consider that. I hoped it was true, so that I would not hurt her like that again. But what did her words mean?

"I have to..." she paused, turning her head side to side, that odd smile never leaving her lips, and I suddenly knew what was going to happen. The remembrance of the kiss I had witnessed flashed into my mind, and I _knew_. If I had been surprised at her appearance, it was nothing to the surprise of finding that she had come here to play, as we had both thought as we stood there facing the other on this spot, mismatched in time, the betrayer, the abandoner. My strongest surprise of all was...relief. She wouldn't be hurt again. I owed her that, for I had loved her image so, and she has a good person, the mother of my child. I would never hurt her for the world.

"It's alright," I whispered. "I saw you. I saw you and him...I want to let you go to him, Bella." Unable to stop myself, I laughed, wild, as the worst thought of all occurred to me. Jacob was not hers any more.

She stared for a moment, then whispered, simply, "Thank you." I had released her. As she turned, foot lifted to flee, I said, calmly,

"What about our daughter?"

Her foot fell. She turned, slowly, back to face me. "It was...wrong..." she said, eyes darting about. "It should never have been; it was my fault, my feelings warped..."

"She loves him," I said, and even as I did, I wondered if that was even true...what my strange child-woman daughter really felt. She was as silent as her mother when she wished to be, and I barely understood her any more than I did Bella sometimes. I feared she did not understand herself, no matter how I tried to love her.

"He loves her," Bella insisted, a light sparking in her face. "Loves her as I do – like an adult should love a child, should love the child of a friend, of a..."

"Of a lover," I said, dryly. She nodded in acknowledgement.

"He is not in love with her," she concluded, fiercely. "He..." she stopped, and I knew she was thinking of things too personal to share, between him and her. _He loves Bella, not her daughter. He craved her for the mother of his children, not the mother of his wife._

"We can't hurt her," I said, and that was the only clear thing I knew. Love was a whirlwind of confusion and endings. I would not let my daughter suffer like that, suffer as she did now with her disparate age, her confused body that did not match her mind. How I pitied her, sometimes, my little girl-adult. I had always feared she would not understand love when Jacob required it...I had never imagined he did not feel the same way, although now, I could see how wrong it would be if he had.

"I know," Bella said, distantly. "She is my whole world...I will never not love her, never forget that she is...my treasure, most precious baby, my only..." her teeth gritted.

"I never doubted that you loved her...more than your life – existence..." I said quickly, seeing she was becoming upset, at herself, Jacob, me, her predicament...the fear for her innocent child's pain.

"He doesn't want her like...that, regardless," she hissed, helpless. "It was always going to end like this and I don't know what to do!"

I went to her and pulled her into my arms, perhaps for the last time. "We should talk to her," I suggested. "She is with my parents." Bella was stiff and strong in my arms, totally still, and I felt her nod. I released her, and she looked into my face.

"Edward...thank you," she said, calming, and I nodded.

"I want your happiness," I said. "I hope we will always be..."

"Friends?" she offered. "Do you think that is possible?"

I couldn't answer that. "Let's talk to Nessie." I said instead, and she nodded. We walked off together, and I knew we had both admitted we were separate...as we ever had been.


	20. T: Turn

**20: Turn**

I remembered the way he looked at me, and the way Mummy reacted. She thought he was falling in love with me, because I was like him, but I was already for someone else. I thought she had been wrong, but I had found his eyes and face interesting, and, when we had spoken alone, even then, his mind open and curious and as woolball tangled as my own. I needed to see him again.

The rainforest was everything my senses craved. Every flicker, every sweet leafmold scent, the beat of every wild heart, the blinding light-on-water-on-verdant, things I had no words for. I watched a lizard creep up a trembling branch, tongue flickering at me, skittering off when it saw me snap my teeth at it. And best of all, _he_ was here in this nature playground somewhere. I could feel him.

The jungle seemed to embrace me in a way society never had. There was nothing to stare at me a moment too long before replying, no driving grief, no coldness. Everything was warm and fragrant and loving. I inhaled the delicious scents, longing to run and laugh and...well, there was no-one to expect a grown up dignity from me here! I threw my hands into the air and laughed and laughed, twirling and collapsing onto the strange plants beneath me.

"An unusual creature here," said a voice, and I gasped, longing to turn, turn and see _him_, and knowing I was lying in mud and madness and he would surely be horrified. Yet...yet...he knew I was a child. He was, too.

I turned, to face the only other being like myself on this planet.

"Beautiful Renesmee," he said, his dark skin and fine features so strangely familiar to me. I smiled, the jungle flowers caught around me, and stared into his dark eyes.

"I needed to talk to you," I said, and he laughed.

"You travel a thousand miles to just talk? What about your parents, your...your wolf man?"

I shook my head. "He doesn't want me. He wants Mummy. Daddy wants to be alone. They're so unhappy. I think they love me, but they don't love each other. And I..." I paused. "I'm strange. I'm not like them. I'm not like anyone, am I? ...we?"

His eyes softened. "I'm sorry...Renesmee, I would never wish for you to feel that kind of hurt, to feel...like this...to be unique is to be cursed, is it not?" His accent was so beautiful. "Vampires who have spoken to me feel unhappy with me because I am not the same. They're friendly, but they can never stay near me for long." He sat beside me in the leaf floor, and reached for my hand. After a moment, I placed mine in his. His skin glimmered against mine, and I twisted my fingers, fascinated, to make them sparkle together.

"I wanted him, but I didn't understand, I wasn't ready, I'm only eight but I'm not and...he and Mummy, they're so alike, and she loves me and she loves him and it hurts her and..." I hung my head, chest tightening. It was all so confusing. Why should any of us feel like this? What was it for? It made no-one happy – I wanted to be like the little human girls my age who I saw sometimes with Granddad, who didn't have bodies that wanted more than their hearts did. I wanted to play with dolls and have parents who were happy and have a friend who understood me. I wanted Mummy to play clapping games with me again and Daddy to play me nursery rhymes on the piano and Uncle Jacob to tie ribbons in my hair and it not mean a thing. I wanted what I could never have.

His face was so sympathetic. "It's not your fault," he said, gently, and I nodded, slowly. I suppose it was true, but I was the only thing holding them all together – the thing causing Jacob and Mummy's pain, the thing causing my own pain. Even now I felt the ache in my chest at knowing I was causing him pain by simply having my own wishes...but we had never met before and we were meant to be together forever? When I had no sense of who I was, what the world meant for me, before I'd had time to _be_? Even now I realised I had run, like a child, no sense of responsibility – I was eight. When you're eight, you just act. It wasn't right for me to have to know I'd done wrong and at the same time know I couldn't have thought of another thing to do.

"Come back to my house," said Nahuel quietly, and lifted me from the ground where I lay, wishing I could just sink into the loam and never rise again. I let myself be lifted into his arms and he carried me with him, this being, the only one who might ever begin to understand.


	21. U: Urges

**21: Urges**

There was utter silence between us as we walked up the driveway; the only thing I could hear was Jacob's breathing. He wasn't holding my hand or touching me, but walking close. Edward strode a few paces ahead, his posture rigid and uncomfortable. I'd insisted that any conversations we had should involve Jake. Edward had given in, eventually, but he wasn't happy.

Alice was waiting in the doorway for us all, and her face immediately sparked suspicion.

"Come in," she said, warily and without preamble. We all piled into the living room and I looked around, expecting Renesmee to come out from somewhere...quiet? Yelling? Confused?

"Edward, may I have a word?" said Alice, and my uneasiness increased.

"You can tell me," I begged my sister, and she glanced at Jacob briefly. My heart, such as it was, lurched. What if she never wanted to see me again? "OK," I relented. "Quickly. Go see her, Edward. Please tell her..."

"I know," he said, heavily, and followed Alice out the room.

I looked at Jacob, desperately. He gripped my hand, his skin inferno-hot against mine, comforting and strong.

"I can't...feel her here," he whispered. "It's..." he shuddered. "I have to be near her to feel...balanced, and I...I don't, Bells." An icy shiver ran through me, and his grip tightened.

"Look," he hissed. "I think...I have it now, on some level...these urges, right? I need to be...whatever she needs. And I'm stuck with this, this joining...but she doesn't need a lover. She needs a brother, an uncle, a protector. I can be all those things, and love her, your daughter...I can be around her. It's just expected that we grow into...you know..." he shifted uncomfortably. "But that wouldn't help me, or her. It wouldn't..." his lips puckered into a lemon-biting face. "It wouldn't _benefit the pack_ or me, what it's meant to do, you know?" He smiled, wanly. "So I think we can make it work. We can be together, Bells, and I can still be in her life so it won't cause anyone pain."

His optimism and courage made my soul sing. This was why I loved him...well, one of so many reasons. His ability to find a way through everything, his determination to never give in...never give me up. I squeezed his hand, and then glanced sharply up as I heard a clatter.

Edward and Alice had been talking in their heads, so I hadn't been able to hear a thing they had said, but Edward's movement – and I could even hear it was he, the force of the movement – scared me, helpless as a human.

"Where's my daughter?" I cried, and leapt from the sofa, darting from Jacob's grasp and into the other room.

Alice's face was resigned; Edward's was simply furious. "Where is he?" he demanded, pushing past me and into the other room. Even Jacob had heard that; as Alice and I followed I could see Jacob trembling with the force of trying not to phase, and Edward snarling, half-crouching. "You drove my daughter to South America!" he shouted, and I froze, spun to Alice.

"She knew," the vampire girl whispered. "She knew about...you...and she went looking for Nahuel, because she was desperate for someone who...understood her, who could help her. She just wanted everyone to be happy. I couldn't have stopped her for long – she would have only made her own way, dangerously...Bella, you wouldn't have wanted that. I made sure she was on the best private airline..."

"Edward, stop!" I shrieked. The timing of the conversation and Edward's leap were infinitesimal ; I wondered vaguely how a human could ever keep up with a vampire conversation, and just how slow we- they were. I grabbed Edward around the waist and threw him bodily across the room, watching Jake struggle to keep control over his form.

"He...it's all his fault," Edward snarled. "He can't even _imprint_ correctly? Can't look after the person who's meant to be his..." He struggled in my arms, but we were evenly matched now, and I was half-shielding Jake now with my mind, little as I could concentrate on it. He growled in frustration, but even now, he wouldn't harm me to get away.

"Edward!" said Alice sharply. "I told you...it was her choice. She said this herself – she doesn't know whether she's an adult or not, no-one treats her consistently. I let her go without a fuss because I was trying to treat her fairly, let her have some peace."

"But she's just a child..." Edward trailed off, and we all paused at that one. Alice was right...we'd treated her like a child or an adult to suit what we needed at that time...not what she felt. We'd all simply accepted she looked like an adult and therefore thought like one. She was eight years old and had the experience of an eight year old, with the mental facilities of an adult. What she felt that we would never, ever understand...and the fate that had toyed with her as much as us and left her every bit as confused and stuck and helpless...I whimpered in my throat. Jake's face was pale. Edward had stood up, calm again.

"We have to find her," I said, the only thing I was sure of. I wanted to tell her...she was my little girl. That I loved her, that we all did...that we'd be there for her. That we could all somehow make this work.


	22. V: Vanity

**22: Vanity**

The irony of the journey amused me: the three of us sitting awkwardly together on the centre row of the 'plane, Bella in the centre in her traditional old 'Switzerland' role. Her fingers were twined, nervously, with Jacob's. He stared straight ahead, and I was surprised to find I took no pleasure in the pain on his face. I knew he cared about my daughter; he _had_ to care about her, but also he cared because she was Bella's daughter...and, I was even more surprised to find, as his thoughts drifted inexorably over, because she was _my_ daughter too, and he considered me something of an ally, at least. I smothered a laugh. He had, as far as he understood, taken my wife away and he still considered me a friend? I also felt his puzzlement that I hadn't put up more of a fight for Bella. He was young, and had no concept of 'eternity'. It might take him years, decades, to begin to understand what I felt, the strange, nagging loss, emptiness, craving for freedom. Maybe he never would; maybe Bella really was the one for him. He understood her, as I had often thought, as I never could.

At the top of his thoughts was Nessie, at least, and the throb of pain in his chest. It was an odd pain, and one I felt slightly awkward intruding on, although it was so total I could not have tuned it out, any more than I could his love for Bella. The two needs, loves, warred in his heart, trying to reconcile and each one edged with guilt and pain. Yes, I pitied him. He didn't want to be free, didn't understand what it was to fall out of love, to actually want to be alone. He had never fallen out of love with Bella and he didn't want to be without Renesmee...

I caught myself philosophising, and turned my face away. It was something that had always irritated Bella when we had been living together. _You need an editor_, she would half-joke. I felt there was infinite thought to process...maybe that was age, too. Or maybe just vanity... after all, was it not perhaps vanity that drove Nessie away? That we cared more about ourselves than her...that we were not, perhaps, ready to be parents, or ever would have been?

Bella glanced my way, and I gave her a half smile, which she returned, nervously. For once, I wondered if she was thinking the same things as me. Her knuckles tightened around Jacob's hand. He was still staring straight ahead, his thoughts unravelling into nothing more than _Ness burning Bella need fear fight save_ and a blur of aching. I didn't dare think what Renesmee herself was feeling right now...was she angry? Hurt? Or did she just long to be free as well...or was that just more vanity?

The truth was, despite hearing almost all their thoughts every day, I understood none of the people in my life. I shrunk from the truth but I knew it, deep down. It was only when I had been forced to truly understand a person, Bella, that I realised I had never done so before and barely knew how.

_It will be different, Nessie,_ I swore in my head to her. _I will spend time with you, my daughter. I'll get to know you, and I'll try and make sure you don't repeat our mistakes. I'll free you from this misunderstanding of love. I'll let you grow up as you wish. I promise, I promise. _I'd often cursed my 'gift', but I was only beginning to realise the real consequences. I loved my daughter...only now did I realise how much. I'd let her spend most of her time with Jacob and Bella, but I _loved_ her, and the knowledge hit me like a sledgehammer. She was the miracle flesh of my flesh that should never have been; something I had never considered in a hundred years or even as a human. I had a daughter. She might age and act differently to any other child, but she _was _a child – my child.

"I'll find you," I whispered. Bella's head whipped round, and for a lax, wistful moment I'd forgotten her vampire senses. She nodded, fiercely, in agreement. For the first time, I understood what she was thinking without needing to ask. She was, at last, thinking the same thing as me.


	23. W: Water

**23: Water**

"There's water in your house!" Renesmee exclaimed excitedly, splashing in fingers in the trickling stream that edged the living room. I knew it wasn't much of a house – more of a shack, really, what I'd been able to assemble in a rainforest and, frankly, I wasn't that interested in a living space. What need did I have for one? Renesmee seemed delighted by it, however.

"It was a pretty place to build," I said, offhandedly. "I spent a while weaving the roof myself. We have a lot of spare time, do we not?"

Renesmee straightened from her crouch by the water and bit her lip, glancing away. I tilted my head.

"Do you not?" I said, bluntly. Heavens, it had been a long time since he had interacted with someone he did not know well. I felt cloddish and awkward around her, despite the pleasure of simply being around someone who was...well, like me, who knew what I had gone through.

"My time is taken up," she said, quietly. "You know..." she looked up at me beseechingly, those dark eyes filled with some odd pain. "I..."

"Go on," I said gently, gesturing her to a seat. She flounced into it, more a child than the adult she resembled, opened her mouth, hesitated...began.

I listened to her story for an hour: the bond she had made herself want and need that had been broken by the one who had initiated it – willingly or otherwise, I knew, from what I understood of this 'imprinting' – her loneliness; the people who didn't understand how to deal with her or what she wanted; the love-hate of the people who would give their lives for her, but not their time or understanding; her sheer confusion of who she was, what she was, WHEN she was...

...everything I had felt. To hear this strange child misfit pouring out my own soul back at me was a bliss and an agony; just as I suspected she felt, talking to me now. _This is what you will become. You will grow up to be like me, dear one._

She stopped, hung her delicate head. "I'm so sorry..." she whispered, and to whom she was apologising, I did not entirely know. Perhaps people who could not hear her.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," I said, making certainty ride on my every word. "Dear Renesmee...how can I tell you everything I have felt and become? I was lucky; there was no one but my aunt and myself so I grew as I wished, more or less, hidden in the undergrowth, growing and not understanding why? Sometimes I would watch the villages of humans and how their children stayed small for so long. Why did I not? It took my wicked father to explain...that man, who seduced my mother without thought or care, that I was a...superior being. How then, could I feel such self-loathing, such wrongness? How could I kill my mother? Why was I the only one?"

"You didn't!" Renesmee said fiercely. "You weren't to know...you couldn't do anything else..." her tongue tripped, and I smiled. She didn't know the way to verbalise what she felt. I hadn't for a long time, until I had taught myself about language and normal interaction.

"When I saw you, I understood that," I nodded, smiling. "You have no idea how precious you are to me, Renesmee...you are _hope_."

"I'm precious to no one," she said, petulantly, despite how real I knew the pain was. It was a pain too great for her child's heart to understand. I would help her. I knew it, as I knew the sun rises and sets on us all.

"You are, no matter how you feel...a toy of fate. I do, just as you do. Created by people who thought this was the best course, forced down a path of life...no choice. But I promise...there will be a way out."

"There is," she said, suddenly, looking up at me. "Let me stay with you."


	24. X: Xenophobia

**24: Xenophobia**

"This place is weird," Jacob grumbled, batting a leaf out of his face. I knew he wasn't saying it, but I could feel, see in his face, that he felt better wince he was closer to Renesmee. Myself – had I a heart, it would be pounding. It was all I could do to stop myself running, crying her name, through the plants. Edward strode ahead, silent and unbending. _Just like always,_ I thought, with strange bitterness. I wanted someone to blame – I knew it wasn't a nice trait, but I wasn't perfect. I was angry, and worried. What if she hadn't made it here? I was sure Jacob would feel it, but...

"It smells good," I offered aloud, my voice a little strained. I had to admit, the scenery did not feel welcoming; this strange, foreign turf. Xenophobic plants? I smothered a little laugh. This wasn't the place. Yet...it seemed that something was pushing us away. Perhaps that was just my overactive imagination, but...

Edward yanked a plant out of his way. "We've got to be close," he gritted. "Alice said his house – hut – place was around here somewhere..." Under his breath he muttered something like _should let the dog do the tracking_. I glared at his back. We were all worried. There was no need to take it out on Jake. I decided to skirt over any other reason he might be angry. There were bigger worries right now...

"There!" Jacob gasped at last, pointing. We followed his finger to see a small, sturdy little shack, quite out of place in the middle of the lush tropical world. A small stream bubbled under one of the walls. It was charming, but the only thing I could see was a coppery head inside one of the windows.

"Renesmee," I cried, and tore from Jacob's grasp, running through the door, arms outstretched, desperate to bring my baby home.

She was there; my beautiful, shimmering little girl, and I got the sudden, odd feeling that this place...accepted her, as it hadn't any of us. There was an odd peace in her face. I shoved the feeling down and simply grabbed her in my arms, pulling her to me and murmuring into her hair. The boy – man – Nahuel – simply stepped back.

"Mummy?" she said, pulling back from me, incredulous, and I nodded, gazing into her beautiful, dear face.

"I was so scared," I whispered, wondering just how many parents had said that to a child over the millennia. "Please, please don't ever..." I could only pull her close again. Even the arrival of Edward and Jacob behind me couldn't part me from her. I would never, ever let her go. At last, everything was right again.

"You came all this way..." she huffed into my chest, and I suddenly realised she was shaking a little, as if she was crying. "Oh Mummy...please don't be angry...I didn't think you'd come..."

"Of course I would," I breathed into her hair. "It's all OK, baby, I'm not angry...you can come home and it'll all be OK..."

She was silent, and all I could feel was her shaking little body against me. _We'll be a family...Mummy and Daddy don't have to live together. She'll have Jacob for the most caring, loving uncle and that's like two fathers, right? And Rosalie for a second mummy...and aunts and uncles and grandparents...The best family of all. I won't get it wrong this time._

She pulled back and shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Mummy, Daddy...Jake...so...so sorry..." She stepped back and went to stand by Nahuel, pushing into his side. I stepped closer to her, and felt Jacob lay a hand on my shoulder. I turned to him, confused, and saw him and Edward exchange a sad, empty look. What did they mean? What was happening? Head spinning, I tried to tug away, but Jacob's hand tightened.

"Bells, honey..." he whispered, glancing, anguished, to my face and Renesmee's and back. She wouldn't meet his gaze.

"You left first," she whispered, so quietly I could barely hear her, even with my senses. Jake winced, but straightened his shoulders, nodded.

"I'll take the best care of her," he said to my daughter, as if he was in some great pain. I held out a hand to him in bemused comfort, since I had no idea what was going on. What strange conversation were they all having? Why was that native boy looking at me with such pity?

"I didn't want to cause you pain," she said stiffly. "I know you would do anything to not have had this bond, just like me..."

"It isn't like that..." he said, crumpling.

"What's happening?" I said, very calmly and deliberately.

"Mummy," Renesmee ran up to me, and pressed her hand to my face, whimpering.

_Let me stay with you!_

_If that is what you want..._

_It is. For as long as I can._

_Then...yes, Renesmee. This can be your home too._

As her hand pulled back, I heard a cry of grief. It took me just a moment to realise it came from my own lips.


	25. Y: Yesterday

**25: Yesterday**

The first thing that struck me was how much Jacob had grown up. I could see the struggle on his face as he picked Bella up and held her; stared at Nessie. His dilemma streamed through his thoughts – he had to be with Nessie. He wanted to be with Bella. He dimply didn't understand what Nessie wanted.

"I didn't ask for this!" Nessie turned her luminous eyes up to me, away from her soul-bond and her mother. Perhaps because I was the only one remaining calm – I had, after all, had years of practise. "What about what I need? I'm not even ten years old. I can't...I can't be a grown-up like you are. It's not right. It's not fair." Her voice cracked a little. "I don't want to hurt you, any of you...but...you don't _understand_ me."

I held a hand out to her, a touch stiffly, perhaps, but she shook her head. "Yesterday," she said, her waterfall voice ringing out, "I was frightened and alone, and now...now I have Nahuel. He knows what I feel. There's no...pressure."

"I didn't mean to pressure you..." Jacob broke in, and she shook her head again.

"I know, it isn't your fault either. And I love you, all of you..." her eyes darkened a touch as she looked at Jacob and Bella; her mother's cold, hard body wrapped in the arms of the man who was meant to be made her and her alone. I suddenly realised, with a pang, that she was jealous...without even knowing why. Objectively, the third party, I knew Nessie and her mother were not as alike enough to make Nessie ever bond with Jacob the way Bella did...but something had overridden their natural feelings. They had been forced to bond. The pain it caused made me grind my teeth with anger and frustration for them all...for my daughter...My innocent daughter. Not for the first time I cursed this existence that warped normal people into monsters; a world without choice.

"Is there nothing we can try?" I suggested, as gently as I could, and she lifted her head, proudly, looking for the first time her biological age; a little girl peeping out from the trappings of adulthood.

"This is my choice, Daddy. I want you all to go home and be happy, and I want to learn how to be...me." She took a deep breath, and stared at Jacob. "This is what I need...you promised you'd be anything I need. I need you to go away and be happy with...with Mummy. OK?"

I marvelled at this little girl, who had more courage than we three adults ever could dream of. I looked over to Jacob, whose eyes shone – as if a weight had been lifted from his chest. _Whatever she needs, he'll be_, Bella's voice sang in my head from earlier years. _A brother, a friend, a lover..._Or simply the man to make her mother happy. Only she could allow it...and she had.

"Come and visit me," Nessie pleaded, again with the eyes of a child...for that was what she was. A child none of us had expected or knew how to deal with, because she was on some level too old to be dandled and protected, but too young to understand what adulthood really meant. Perhaps we all had been – the foolish, blinded _me _who first met Bella as a human was very different from the _me_ who stood here today, as were we all. I felt the last tie of whatever hideous fate had trapped us pull free.

"Always," I promised her, and she beamed, a smile that lit up the room; that even could take away Bella's pain.

"Thank you," she said, and the sincerity took away the last of my doubts as Nahuel pulled her close to his side again.


	26. Z: Zeal

**26: Zeal**

The silence of the house was heartbreaking. Every time I moved, a fresh wave of grief and loneliness swept over me, and I craved to leap back on a plane and sweep my little girl up, take her away...but I couldn't. For her sake, this time, I had to let go, make a sacrifice. Every novel I had ever read had paradise at a price; only now did I understand how it felt to have to find something perfect at the price of someone else's pain...someone you loved. I hung my head.

Jacob's burning hand on my arm was an anchor to reality. Edward's silent acceptance was a gift I barely deserved. Yet...yet...here they were.

I understood zeal...oh, yes. Really, since meeting Edward, it had defined my life; zeal to the point of obsession. I had wanted him, my first love, like...well, like Marianne had wanted Willoughby – not that he had been a being such as Edward, but first love scars you; it always does. True love is something completely different, something that sneaks up on you and one day you realise. Something unconnected with zeal, and more with inevitability. Something long-lasting, not a brief elemental burst that is doomed to failure.

I had loved my daughter with that same zeal, and she had paid for it, because I had been wrong.

Paradise at a price...for all of us.

"We can help you move anything you want to the Reserve," Edward offered, and I gave a weak half-smile at the thought that I, a vampire, would be living with a pack of werewolves, at least for the interim. Jacob had, on the flight home, gently mooted the point that we'd have to get our own place sometime since having a vampire in close proximity in the long term to the wolves wouldn't be a good idea. Intellectually they were her friends, but on a primal level, the werewolves – shifters - existed to combat her kind. That was fine. Being alone with Jacob was what I wanted.

"It won't be easy," I murmured, quite unintentionally speaking my thoughts into the void of silence. Both the men laughed, strangely enough; Edward a deep peal of bells, Jacob a heavy bark.

"When was it?" Jake guffawed, and I let the half-smile blossom. He had a point. But I'd learned...I'd grown. Love wasn't easy and it wasn't a fairy tale. Just look at my parents; look at me and Edward. I knew Jake and I would argue, and I knew we'd make up with affection, just as we had as friends. I loved him, and he loved me. We would work at it, work around the problems. I'd even try and find something to mask the smell that surely overwhelmed him as much as his did to me. I almost laughed at that little problem.

He would always be linked to my daughter, just as I would. We would never forget that we had a responsibility to her...no matter where she was. Zeal tempered with knowledge and experience...I had learned. I wasn't a child any more. I was a mother, a lover, soon to be an ex-wife, even. A teenage mother and ex-wife...but I didn't mind what anyone would think any more; I'd grown out of that. My circumstances were unique. I was my mother's daughter and my father's, and somehow, knowing that Renesmee was a blend of all of us, of my parents, myself and Edward cheered me. She'd have examples to work from and people to call on...and now, she had Nahuel. Part of me hated him for existing, but the rational back of my mind was just glad he was there for her. Maybe they'd fall in love – the proper, old fashioned way, through getting to know each other. Maybe they'd just be friends. I wasn't to know, or to predict.

Jacob took my hand, and I smiled into his face. This was it...and I knew, now, maybe it wouldn't be forever. I knew things could go wrong, and it hurt. Yet I also knew that love took work; it wasn't to take for granted, to all miraculously work out for free. I was willing to work, and I knew he was too. It might be forever, and I thought it would be. I was ready for the challenge, at long last...ready to live.

A/N: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is your alphabetical lot. It's been fun!


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